FLIGHT
THIRTY-ONE YEARS'
FLOTATION
Pioneer Stitl Producing Balloons and
Dinghies
IN a welter of high wing loadings and lb. per h.p. itis pleasant, for a change, to turn to things lighter thanair and lighter than water. Early this year, March
ioth to be precise, R. F. Dagnall celebrated the com-
pletion of thirty-one years of airships and flotation gear
manufacture and design. He started his career, strangely
enough, in one of the heavy industries, being in the draw-
ing office of the Thames Iron Works until 1910. The next
four years Mr. Dagnall devoted almost entirely to the
pilotage and manufacture of free balloons and airships,
collaborating with E. T. Willows. During the 1914-18 war
he was for a time works manager and later general manager
of Airships, Ltd., who ran four factories with over 1,100
employees. They constructed man-carrying kite balloons
for artillery observation, small non-rigid airships (blimps)
for anti-submarine patrol over the Channel and North
Sea, tank tents, and inflatable salvage pontoons for raising
sunken vessels. In 1920 the R.F.D. Company was formed,
and apart from a short lapse into heavier-than-air by the
construction of gliders—which, incidentally, were very
good gliders—their efforts since then have been devoted
to automatic flotation gear for aircraft and pilot,
illuminated wind-direction indicators, drogue targets for
air-to-air gunnery training, and motor-driven pneumatic
dinghies. The Youngman Dinghy, which automatically
releases and inflates itself if an aircraft comes down in
the water, has been developed to a very large extent by the
R.F.D. Company. One of their latest products is the new
(Top, left) Bombers' dinghies being fitted withlife lines and other external fittings.
(Left, centre) The single-seat parachute packdinghy shown inflated and packed. One of
these is carried by each fighter pilot.
Bottom row (left) Flotation bags for aWellington bomber. These fit in the bomb
bays and are automatically inflated if theaircraft descends on the water. (Centre) The
same set of bags inflated. (Right) Testingthe fin of a barrage balloon.